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Dai no Daibouken

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Dai's Big Adventure, more or less. A Shounen manga (and later anime) series, spun off the wildly popular Dragon Quest RPG series, with a scenario by Sanjo Riku and art by Koji Inada (both of whom later went on to create Beet the Vandel Buster). The titular hero, Dai, is a young kid who's been raised by monsters on Delmarine Island after he was washed ashore as an infant, the only survivor of a shipwreck, and who dreams of being an adventure hero. Since the Demon King had been defeated many years before, the monsters have been freed from his influence and are actually quite peaceful  but suddenly, one day, the Demon King comes back to life, and the monsters start raging again.

Just then, a "hero trainer" named Avan lands on the island with his wizard trainee, Pop, and sets up a magical barrier, which frees the monsters from Evil's influence. He then proceeds to train Dai to be the next Great Hero, but before they can complete the training the Demon King himself shows up, Avan sacrifices himself and fails... but Dai flies into an Unstoppable Rage, and chases the Demon King away.

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After the battle, he and Pop decide to fight the Demon King, to rid the world of evil once again.

An Anime Adaptation aired for 46 episodes from 1991 to 1992. The series and manga were translated and released for Latin America, changing Dai's name to Fly. During Jump Fiesta 2020, it was announced the manga will get a new Anime Adaptation set to air in Fall 2020, as well as a Video Game project developed by Square Enix, titled: Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: Infinity Strash. Dai also makes an appearance as a playable character in the Shonen Jump crossover fighting game Jump Force

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This manga provides examples of:

Accidental Pervert: When Maam meets Dai and Pop for the first time, she helps them defeat a monster and criticizes Pop for his failure to do so by himself. Pop, not happy with her critique and unaware that Maam is a girl, tries to size himself up by poking her upper torso — and only THEN does he finally realize he's confronting a girl, after Maam harshly pushes him away.

Humans are usually viewed in a positive light, but it's clear that Dai has been and will be rejected by a lot of humans for being half dragon knight and unnaturally strong.

This is also the reason Baran snapped and vowed to wipe out all humans.

The final arc revealed that Avan was playing dumb since his teen years, both to fool his enemies and to avoid awkward comparisons with his (vastly inferior) allies. This even gets it's own sub-story where it's explained with lots of details.

During the battle to gain entrance to Vearn's fortress, Shrinking Violet Merle takes a bullet for Pop. Pop freaks out and asks her why, which makes Leona finally lose it and reveal that Merle has been in love with him since ever.

Immediately after that, Merle begs Pop to show her real courage and say the name of the woman he loves. After a moment of hesitation, Pops states his love for Maam, who is standing literally a few feet away and was completely unaware of his feelings up to that moment.

Berserk Button: Hurting Dai's friends is a very bad idea. Most notable at the beginning, when he can't activate his Draconic Aura unless he's really angry.

Beta Couple: A unique case where the Beta Couple is the main couple. Leona and Dai are pretty clearly attracted to each other from the start and they remain so throughout the manga. The only reason why they aren't actively dating is probably because they're 1. they're a bit young and 2. they're preoccupied with saving the world. Compare them to the Pop-Maam-Hyunkel-Merle-whoever mess.

Big Damn Heroes: Happens regularly, several times per arc to be precise. Listing every instance of it would take a LONG time. However, it's worth noting that both Crocodine and Hyunkel like doing this a lot.

"Blind Idiot" Translation: the French manga translation by publisher J'ai Lu is notoriously awful. Most of the characters and places have names transliterated directly from the Japanese kana (Poppu, Hadora, Demurin, exception: Fuam for Maam), the translators couldn't decide in the first volumes if Avan was male or female and thus wrote "he (she)" and the masculine and feminine alternatives of adjectives whenever he spoke or was mentioned, and in at least one instance "Yuusha" (grand hero) was considered the name of the hero ("the grand hero Yusha!"). The "Avan Strash" also became the "Avan Slah." Very obnoxious and literal sound effects ("freeze," "hug") were added in small font next to the Japanese sound effects. To add insult to injury, it was printed on low-quality paper (think newspaper quality) that made the ink stick to your fingers. Thankfully, another publisher is remaking the whole translation from scratch, almost ten years later.

Cloud Cuckoolander: Avan pretends to be one to hide his own abilities from foes and friends. Even the goofy glasses he wears all the time were given to him by princess Flora herself to complete the disguise.

Comedic Sociopathy: In real life, Pop would be acutely brain damaged and Maam in jail from beating him up all the time. But Hilarity Ensues, and Pop does act like a jerk after all.

Cowardly Lion: Even pre-Character Development, Pop was showing signs of being this. By the end of the series he's discarded all of his cowardness and represents the pillar of Courage.

Conservation of Ninjutsu: The chess pieces that are brought to life. The 5 Shinei Kidan warriors are formidable opponents that give Dai's team quite a bit of trouble. Hymn the pawn is almost even match with Hyunkel. The remaining 13 pieces, however, would be easily torn apart by Hyunkel with his bare hand, if the King piece didn't play dirty.

Avan. After almost killing himself to stop Hadlar he realizes that he is hopelessly outmatched in the upcoming battle against the Demon army and he descends the Anti-Magic cave to find new spells and hone his skills. He comes back near the end, packed with powerful new abilities and items, some of which he invented himself.

Played hilariously with Chu the mouse and the random items he carries with him all the time.

Cue the Sun: Dai receives his father's sword this way in the final battle against Vearn.

Cut Short: The anime ends after Dai's first encounter with Baran, which is less than a third through the Manga's full length, and which also ends on a rather different way. In the Anime Baran is overwhelmed by the strength of Dai's bond with his friends, and he concedes the battle because of it. But in the Manga Baran decides to cut this bond by erasing Dai's memories before retreating to gather his comrades. Needless to say, it would have been more infuriating if they took the Manga route in this case.

Dai's hidden abilities at first, though a nice plot arc is eventually made of it.

Gome is a literal version of this, being an item of the gods that grants miracles to its owner.

The Dragon: Hadlar is a textbook example. Turns out, so is Myst-Vearn.

Dude, Where's My Respect?: Baran gets no recognition for his defeat of Velther and it's implied that his heroics are overshadowed by Avan's defeat of Hadlar. The reason being that while Hadlar is weaker, he was more immediate threat; he was already conquering parts of the surface. Velther was stopped before he could mount an invasion.

Even Evil Has Standards: Myst-Vearn may be a card carrying villain adherent to the will of Vearn, but he has nothing but disgust for Zaboera's deceptive and backstabbing ways, even leaving him to die against the ground forces. Boy was he pissed when he heard Zaboera bad mouthing Hadlar.

Everyone Can See It: Merle and Pop are rather unsubtle about their crushes. Pretty much everyone knows and gossips behind their back.

Baran also gives a fairly good idea of what Dai could become if he grew disillusioned with humankind.

Expy: at first, Dai looks like a young Son Goku but he gets better. Other characters are clearly influenced by Akira Toriyama's characters too. Not very surprising, since Akira Toriyama did the character designs for Dragon Quest.

Hard Work Hardly Works: Subverted. While Dai's friends cannot catch up to Dai's superhuman strength, they all go through harsh trainings to increase their powers and are able to assist Dai tremendously. There are always multiple threats that need to be dealt with and Dai is only able to tackle the strongest one.

HeelFace Turn: Way too many instances. Crocodine, Hyunkel; even Baran and Hadlar, among others.

Humans Are Bastards: Played with. Most people and even demons and beasts turn out to be great folks deep inside (sometimes after their HeelFaceTurns). On the other hand, Baran had such a horrible experience with human beings (save for Soara) that he ended up going on a rampage.

Inferiority Superiority Complex: Pop's early Miles Gloriosus personality is revealed to be due to his own frustration at his cowardice and lack of power. He quickly drops the act, but his lack of self-esteem remains until he manages to overcome it thanks to Merle's sacrifice.

Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Hyunkel and Pop are a textbook version of this trope. Hyunkel starts off as an extremely powerful swordsman who gives both Dai and Pop a hard time, while Pop is a Miles Gloriosus. Later on, Hyunkel is still a powerful ally but Pop has taken so manylevels of badass that he's the only one able to face Vearn head on together with Dai.

Made of Explodium: The Shinei Kidan explode when they die, and there's a good reason to it that's not explicitly stated in the Manga: Since their bodies are made of the extremely rare and powerful Orihalcon, it would be disadvantageous for them if the heroes could scavenge their remnants to forge some new weapons and/or armor with them. Even their severed body parts explode.

Dai learns to be one over the course of the series, mixing magic to his sword attacks.

Baran's a natural born one as the Dragon Knight.

Magnetic Hero: Dai, evident by the answer Crocodine gives Baran when he asks why he gives it all to protect Dai: "Before I met him I thought humans were worthless, but he showed me I was wrong. And not only me, Hyunkel was like that too... to us, Dai is our Sun."

Male Gaze: Embodied in Pop. He once notices Gome hitching a ride in Maam's clothes because her bust looks bigger than normal.

Maybe Ever After: There's no definitive resolution to the Merle-Pop-Maam love triangle: Pop turns Merle down and Maam tells him to wait until she gets over Hyunkel. We see them traveling together after the end but its not clear if they're just traveling as friends or if Pop is dating one or more of them.

Not So Different: During the Final Battle, Dai unleashes his full power, something he had been actively surpressing until then for fear of losing his memory or his mind or permanently morphing into something was not human. Shortly after, Vearn does the same thing, transforming into a gigantic monster. He remarks they're both willing to lose themselves in order to achieve victory. Dai reluctantly and silently agrees.

Oblivious to Love: Maam is completely oblivious to Pop's feelings for her, while Pop doesn't realize that Merle has been in love with him since they first met. Meanwhile, their friends sigh and facepalm.

Right Behind Me: A variant. When Dai and Leona use a hot-air balloon to head to a department store for the purpose of getting new equipment for Dai, Dai worries not bringing Pop along. Leona, on the other hand, doesn't consider Pop reliable and quickly expresses her opinion on the matter. What Dai and Leona don't know, however, is that Pop, having trained to enable himself to fly by magic, has been positioning himself below the airborne hot-air balloon while Leona expresses her criticism of him, and so he hears the whole spiel.

Rule of Cool: All the time. The writer even confesses to writing in abilities and spells that are not in the Dragon Quest franchise for the sake of coolness.

Defied: Avan can't defeat Hadlar with his Megante spell, but his death releases Dai's hidden power.

Pop tries to cast a Megante to kill Baran, but Baran manages to shake him off right before the explosion. Defied again: the sacrifices doesn't work as intended, but manages to make Dai regain his memories.

It can be difficult believing Hyunkel is not something from Saint Seiya. Seriously, look at his armours and how he equips them. He even looks a bit like Hyoga and was dubbed by Phoenix Ikki's former seiyuu Hideyuki Hori. Think about what army he is in charge of, and how many times he comes Back from the Dead.

Dai and Baran's Kamehame Hadoken. There's even one instance where Dai shoots one, and the recipient of the blast sees the ghostly image of Baran standing behind him in the same pose, a Shout-Out to how Gohan defeated Cell in Dragon Ball Z.

Zaboera's son Zamza's Hyper Demon form has some traits to it reminiscent of Cell, specifically, eating people in order to become stronger, having an ability that allows for quick regeneration, being composed of the traits of numerous types of demons, and even the mouth on his chest somewhat resembles Cell's tail-mouth, being used in the same way.

On one hand it's subverted: the Big Bad sends the six general after Dai from the beginning.

On the other hand, it's played straight in the order in which the generals fight Dai: Crocodine is a lot weaker than Hyunkel, who gets his ass handed to him by Flazzard, who in turn is a joke compared to Baran.

Also, from the moment Crocodine failed Hadlar had wanted to send all 6 of his generals at once. The order was belayed by the Big Bad, who hoped to persuade Dai to come to his side.

Spell My Name with an "S": particularly extreme if you take into account the "Blind Idiot" Translation in the French manga. Dai was renamed "Fly" in French and Spanish to avoid the phonetic equivalent of "die" ("fly" is an impressive name, thank you very much); Hyunckel/Hyunkel/Henki (in the French translation of the anime); Marm/Maam/even Fuam in the French manga; Pop/Poppu (ditto); Aban/Avan/Ivan; Hadler/Hadlar/Hadora; Dermlin/Delmulin/Dremlin/Demurin/Whatever island; Crocodin/Crocodine/Krokodine; Vearn/Ban; Freezair/Flazzard/Freeze; Gome/Gomen.

Superpowered Evil Side: Dai's "Dragon Knight personality" isn't evil, but it sure is terrifying and shows a darker, more violent side of his personality than we are used to.

Sword and Sorcerer: Dai and Pop. Dai despite being a Magic Knight, favors swordsmanship and most of his spells are either short range offensive attacks or boosts to his fighting ability. Pop when teamed up with Dai, provides the long range explosive firepower, defense and after he becomes a Sage, healing that Dai lacks. Demonstrated beautifully in the fight against Vearn when they display both the Tank/Healer and Meat Shield/Glass Cannon sides of the trope.

Taking the Bullet: Plenty of examples. Crocodile actually used this as his main fighting tactic against Baran to buy time for Dai.

Later, Flora asks Leona to join the team as Avan's hypothetical fifth disciple and Crocodine is more or less relegated to the background. When Avan conveniently reappears, he recognizes her as part of the team and as the disciple he'd have chosen.

Took a Level in Badass: Many characters, but especially Pop, who according to Hyunkel, Kill-Vearn and Vearn themselves, is even scarier than Dai.

You know you've become a badass when you use a spell even after dying.

This gets even more evident when, during the final battle against Vearn Pop quickly discovers the weak point on Vearn's absolutely invincible battle stance, create an opening in aforementioned ultimate battle stance allowing Dai to cut one of Vearn's arms off and then neutralizes Vearn's ultimate magic attack while staring at him with a "take that" expression on his face.

Hadlar uses an artifact named Chimera's Wings to retreat after his humiliating defeat during his first fight with Dai.

The spell Ruura also works this way, being a teleportation spell that requires a clear image of the location where the user intends to go; therefore, it's only possible to transport to locations he/she has already visited.

Avan isn't abnormally strong neither has a lot of magic power. He can use with incredible efficiency the strength and magic power he does have.

Hyunkel starts as one of the strongest characters, mainly for his exceptional swordsmanship skill, but quickly becomes relatively average when compared to other characters. Dai is the hero, Pop can use magic, and Maam is infinitely stronger physically than he is. Then he starts using his own life as a weapon and takes a few levels in badass.

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